How The Selfish Fall
by MouseyL
Summary: He has stopped storming through the squad room and turns to look at her as he throws the line in her face. It hits like scalding water from a pan, numbing her before the pain sears through. For a second she blinks. And then falls.


"You haven't got kids. You don't know how far a parent would go to keep them, even if it meant hurting someone they once loved."

He has stopped storming through the squad room and turns to look at her as he throws the line in her face. It hits like scalding water from a pan, numbing her before the pain sears through. For a second she blinks. And then falls.

The slap of her hand against his face resounds like thunder in the air, and everyone else becomes as still as them. All are on their feet but none moving as she starts, quivering with rage and fury and, in that moment, utter hatred for the man in front of her.

"You selfish bastard. You know the reason I don't have a husband, or a family, or kids? It's because of this job. This job, and you."

He didn't move when she slapped him, and he doesn't as she begins her tirade, frozen as the wave slams into him.

"You get to waltz in here with your kids and your wife and you still think you have the right to act like a jealous asshole when anyone shows me the least amount of attention. You behave like you're the one with problems, like having five kids is such a burden, like going home to their love is an issue for you."

She's deafened by the blood thumping in her mind and the sound of twelve years hurt rushing out of her, leaving bitter trails.

"Do you even realise all the things I've done for you? The things I've given up for you, that you have never considered for one second?"

"I shot a man so you didn't have to. I've been in trouble with IAB for you, sat in a room and been interrogated about you, been grilled by a psychiatrist because of you. I've covered your ass when you've beaten up suspects, when you've fucked people over, when you haven't even told me what the hell you're going to do next.

"I've put my life, my career, and my pension on the line for you, without so much as a thought or a thank you. I was driving your wife to a doctors appointment that you should have been taking her too when I nearly got killed, and all I could feel was guilt that it might have been my fault.

"I've put up with everyone thinking we've had an affair, with your son accusing me of doing so. With your wife calling me up to ask how to deal with you. I've sat by your side when you've been beaten up, shot, blinded. I was there when you left Kathy and there when you went back.

"When you were torn apart because you'd chosen me over the job, I took myself out of the equation so you never had to make that decision again, and still it all became my fault, and I was the one on the wrong.

"I took your mother to see your daughter, to talk her into doing what you wanted, because you'd failed. I've been tarred with the same brush when you've done something typically idiotic. I've covered for you so many fucking times I can't even count. And all you can do is throw in my face that I don't have the few basic things that might possibly make me happy.

"Fuck you."

Even after she has left, the room rings with her words, the echoes resounding round them until they tire and die. He thinks the room might be spinning, that an earthquake might have hit, but no one else seems affected.

He runs then, after her, down the stairs and out onto the street, but she's gone, vanished into the city.

The rest of that day, he harasses her cell, her home phone, asks Cragen every half an hour if she's called. He gets no answer. He leans on her buzzer until a neighbour comes out and lets him in, and then pounds on her door until midnight, threatening to break it down but not able to go through with it. He's scared of what he will find. He sits in the dry, cooling air on an empty street and watches leaves settle on the ground. He feels like one of them, brittle and dead. For the first time, he sees what life she has given him.

She hears him but doesn't react, sitting in the darkness and shredding a piece of paper so small that it is nothing when it slips through her fingers and scatters. Over and over again, new dust falls, until on the dark of her floor the white is starlight, staring up at her. When she stands, it is brushed away.

The next day she comes in, acts as normal, but won't look or speak to him. In the end it's him that storms out, the petulant child, and afterwards he realises he's done himself absolutely no favours. That yet again, he is acting like the victim. It had been a quiet day and the others had hung around her, not giving him a moment alone. He wonders whether they're scared he'll kill her, or she'll kill him.

It's two days later that the floor falls out from under them. Literally.

They've gone to the abandoned warehouse on an off chance, something had been mentioned in relation to a case. Fin and Munch were busy, and while Elliot had been setting off alone, she'd followed him down and got into the car, still without a word.

When they pull up outside, she surveys the place with almost a yawn. It's so typical, such a usual place for them to end up in, somewhere isolated, empty and broken. There is nobody around, just seagulls dancing in the breeze, light and rowdy, screams of delight and rage in equal measure.

The roof has fallen in places, patches of October sunlight spotting the floor and dust hovering over the surface. Neither notice the creak until it's too late. As they feel the world disappear from under them, they look at each other for the first time since the fight, eyes locking.

It's a noisy, twisting mix of wood and rubble, dust and sound, but calm reigns sooner than she expects as it settles and she moves her arms from her head, looking around. Elliot is sitting up, shaking debris from him, and searching the room. Their eyes catch for a minute and they feel each other assess their damage. His eyes travel across every inch of her. Olivia can sense a faint line of blood trickling down her face, but when she touches it there is hardly any pain, just a small cut putting on a show.

Elliot looks shell shocked, the same expression on his face as when she slapped him.

"You okay?" She's gazing up at the floor they have just come through when he asks, at how she can see right to the sky from the dark, and she is almost surprised at the concern. How quickly twelve years of partnership have been wiped from her mind, erased by anger and rage. She looks at him and nods.

"You?" He nods as well, before trying to stand up, and failing, swear words echoing around them.

"Fuck."

"What is it?" She doesn't move towards him.

"My knee. Think I've twisted it or something." He tries to stand up again, but can't, falling instead.

The only light comes from that streaming down, illuminating the space they created and the jagged edges of their fall. But it brings enough to show there is nothing of any use in here, just a locked door. When she looks back, he's checking his cell and shaking his head.

"Out of range."

She pulls hers out of her pocket and sees the same.

Typical.

Sinking down to the floor and leaning her head back against the cold basement wall, she settles in for the long wait. Amid the creaks of the building and the faint cry of seagulls outside, she hears Elliot shuffling, and opens her eyes a crack. He's moved back to the opposite wall, and is groaning as he shifts his knee in front of him. She should help, should try and make him comfortable, should think of a plan to get them out.

She's tired of being the one that fixes it all. So she closes her eyes. Let him.

He watches her in the shadows, as the dust floats down onto them, coating her skin. Her eyes are closed, her breathing deep, and he can see the moment she falls asleep as her hand slides slowly from her knee and to the floor, resting palm upwards, relaxed, her fingers beckoning.

His knee is throbbing in heartbeats, but it's welcome. It's the reality of his pain inside, his body mimicking his mind. Since her words, he's thought again and again about his mistakes, and how he can fix them, but nothing seems right. Especially not his first instincts. As ever, he wants to break something, but he knows that someone else will have to clean up the mess. He's broken too much already. He wants to not be selfish, but it kills him that what she seems to need isn't him. Is, in fact, the complete absence of him. He can't be without her, despite the fact he may lose her anyway, when she leaves.

So he sits, and he watches.

He can tell when she wakes up, even though the sun has gone down and all that's left are shadows of darkness. He thinks he might have counted each one of her breaths, but he knows it's not true. He has been lost in her though, even from across the room. That is true. He imagines he can hear the flutter of her eyelashes in the air as she opens her eyes.

"El?"

It's the unsure tone of sleep, of not remembering everything, of not remembering she's mad at him and he's fucked it all up.

"Yeah?"

"Just checking you hadn't left. Or died." There it is.

"Maybe you'd prefer one of those."

She snorts, but doesn't agree or disagree.

He waits until it is completely dark before he speaks again.

"I'm sorry." His voice sounds smaller than he means it too, struggling through the darkness towards her. When she doesn't reply, he continues. It's easier talking to the night. "I have never meant to hurt you."

He hears her sigh, the sound of a tree letting go of its leaves, watching them fall. The touch of them against the earth.

"I know." She's resigned again, stoic in her acceptance of the truth.

He has nothing more. How can he tell her, once he's thought through all the facts, that everything he has done has been because she's been by his side. That he wouldn't, couldn't have done any of it without her. That she's the only thing holding him together. It kills him that doing so has torn her apart and that she's given so much of herself to help him stay whole.

He starts to shift, kicking the fallen, rotten floor out of the way and using his arms to move his body.

"What are you doing?" She sounds cross again.

"Coming over to you." He's already breathing heavier, the pain in his knee jarring him, and he hears her mutter under her breath.

"For fuck sake." And then she's standing up, coming towards him, and he catches a glimpse of her as she passes under the gap and the faint, weak light silhouettes her. He cannot see her face, just her shape.

She sits down against the wall, reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. He moves so he is leaning again, and they stay silent as the dust resettles. He feels each breath she takes, how she expands and contracts. He imagines he can taste her in the air that has been within her.

"If I haven't got you, I've got nothing." It's only when he feels her freeze beside him that he is sure he's said it out loud. She doesn't move, but then, she has nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. In the darkness, she is trapped. "You've saved everything for me. My job, my life, my children. Without you, I'd have fucked it all up years ago."

"I know."

"And I'm sorry I never gave you the choice, that I never gave you the chance to say you wouldn't do that for me."

She sighs again.

"Every day I had the choice Elliot. I made it every day."

"Why?"

There is an eternity after his question, as it hangs above them, watching. She turns her head, not towards him but away, into the depths of the night where anything might hide, and then she answers.

"For the same reason. I can't do it without you."

And just like that, twelve years of truth free them. He matches his breathing with hers, and they sit in the darkness. When he cannot stop himself, he reaches for her hand. She lets him. In the broken night, she feels whole.

Later, much later, when he slides into her with a sigh and a prayer, when he holds himself above her with his elbows and licks the faint trail of blood upwards before kissing the cut on her head, when he feels her draw his blood with her fingernails as she strains up towards him, he hopes he's fixing her. That in destroying everything else around him, he can repair what he has broken in her.

Every time he pushes, and his body forces the breath from her lungs, she feels some of the pain leave, seep from her in the face of what is now inside. He's filling her, not only with his body but with his breath and his heat and his life. He is darkness above her, but she knows every pore of his skin. 

As they lie, breathing, with him weighing her down, keeping her from running, and the dust of neglect drifts over their skin and he hears her heart beneath him, feels her fingers running up and down his spine with each breath, he realises that he is whole too. That, yet again, she's saved him. As he's just about to speak, he tastes her whisper as it floats across him.

"I'd do it all again."


End file.
